Technical reasons static IP costs more

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Technical reasons static IP costs more

Spaghetti

23 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 5

#315603 29-Jul-2024 18:28

If you need a public IP address, resource wise what does it matter if it's dynamic or it's static? It seems that ISP's just charge extra because they are greedy, and not because of any actual technical difficulty when implementing a static IP.

Also, wouldn't static IP's simplify asset tracking?

1 | 2 | 3

meow
13581 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 10914

Moderator

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3266016 29-Jul-2024 18:32

Public IPv4 space is expensive these days. Having dynamic IP addressing means it’s easy to manage IP pools so these can shift depending on where the ISP has the space or even to CG-NAT, static IP addressing is normally in another “fixed” pool.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
Referral Links: Quic Broadband (use R122101E7CV7Q for free setup)

Are you happy with what you get from Geekzone? Please consider supporting us by subscribing.
Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

KiwiSurfer

1725 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 994

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3266020 29-Jul-2024 19:01

Look up the price for IPv4 blocks -- it's not cheap these days. Even worse if you're a new entrant in the RSP space as they have to find someone to buy blocks off now which is not cheap.

In the dialup days they only needed enough IPs for all their dialup ports. Nowdays with always-on routers, everyone and their dog needs an IPv4 address -- even the grandmother who only checks her facebook every other day. That explosion of demand hasn't helped given the supply of IPv4 addresses is fairly limited. Law of supply and demand has to come into the picture.

Long term I suspect we'll see a migration of most home/mobile/etc dynamic IPv4 connections to being behind CG-NAT so RSPs can sell off their excess IPv4 blocks to other RSPs that value them more. Especially to those RSPs in developing countries that need them and are willing pay pretty sums of money to secure even a few blocks off legacy RSPs in western countries. If the RSP assigns a certain amount of Static IP addresses to individual customers, then that RSP would be taking a loss compared to if they could have sold these IPv4 addresses -- so there is defintely a cost (even if only an opportunity cost) to the RSP for providing a Static IP to an individual.

This is essentinally why widespread IPv6 adoption couldn't come soon enough -- but for now the scarity of IPv4 addresses is basically why we're seeing lots of economic levers being pulled to ensure the IPv4 market is allocating resources where it is most needed. Most individuals don't need their own IPv4 address so the market is correctly producing the outcome of "people who do want their own IPv4 address must pay for it" which is generally what is happening.

TBH, static IPv4 addresses aren't expensive given the supply/demand issues. There are other ways to avoid it e.g. using Tailscale, IPv6, DDNS, etc but if you really want it then its you that has to make the economic decision whether it's worth the sacrifice or not.

CamH

615 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 327

Subscriber

#3266022 29-Jul-2024 19:38

It's the cost and the limited number of static IPs available.

We're a small ISP and have a /22 (1,024 IP addresses), most of which are allocated or reserved for one reason or another.

I therefore have to buy or rent another block. To buy another /24, I'm looking at about $13,000 ($50~ per IP), or to rent, about $200~ per month ($0.78~ per IP).

Now, most places (like us) are going to rent a block. We need to factor in the cost of the whole block and charge it appropriately to customers who want to be static. We need to factor in price rises for this rented block.

Or, we could just get one single, public IP and put up to 100 clients behind it.

Spaghetti

23 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 5

#3266023 29-Jul-2024 19:51

CamH:

It's the cost and the limited number of static IPs available.

Taking CG-NAT out of the picture. If you have one dynamically assigned public IP, vs one statically assigned IP, the resource cost is the same.

So why are we charged more?

Spaghetti

23 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 5

#3266024 29-Jul-2024 19:53

michaelmurfy:

Public IPv4 space is expensive these days. Having dynamic IP addressing means it’s easy to manage IP pools so these can shift depending on where the ISP has the space or even to CG-NAT, static IP addressing is normally in another “fixed” pool.

Some ISP's will still give you dynamic non CG-NAT IP.

So if it costs more to have a "fixed" pool, how so?

CamH

615 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 327

Subscriber

#3266025 29-Jul-2024 20:03

Spaghetti:

CamH:

It's the cost and the limited number of static IPs available.

Taking CG-NAT out of the picture. If you have one dynamically assigned public IP, vs one statically assigned IP, the resource cost is the same.

So why are we charged more?

Dynamic is a lot easier to manage. If we just throw IPs in a pool and they get assigned at random, it's a lot easier than all the backend work to assign a static and ensure it doesn't mess with any future plans. For example, if I assign some static's in a block, and suddenly want to pull a /25 to assign somewhere else, if there's statics in the block, I can't do that. If everyone's dynamic, I can just go - cool, these are no longer in the dynamic block. This is happening a lot more these days with such a limited number of available IPv4. Where ISPs may have had a /20 assigned to customer IPs, they're now pulling /24's out and assigning them elsewhere to avoid having to procure more IPv4.

This being said, we're all static on our network because we're B2B only, so other ISPs may chime in with their reasoning too. In the end though, it comes down to limited resource = higher cost to use.

HP

Shop now for HP laptops and other devices (affiliate link).

toejam316

1516 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 888

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3266027 29-Jul-2024 20:04

You've literally quoted the answer to your question in Michael's post - Dyanmic IP pools allow flexability and reallocation of IP resources as required, and mean that an ISP can choose to implement CG-NAT if required, or repurpose an IP Address range. Probably also relates to the evolution of fixed networks - you didn't need to provide every customer a static IP every time back in the dial on demand/dial-up days, so you'd just allocate a small block to a pool. Telecommunciations is built on the back of sharing resources amongst users rather than having bespoke 1:1 service.

Join Quic Broadband with my referral - no sign up fee and gives me account credit

Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

BlackrazorNZ

41 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 24

ID Verified

#3266034 29-Jul-2024 20:21

It's the difference between having 100 open use car parks and 100 assigned car parks, at the parking building.

Sure, the property owner still had to pay to provide 100 car parks. But with 100 open car parks, they can just let anyone take any car park, so they can fit 100 cars, all the time.

With 100 assigned car parks, each of which noone else is allowed to park in, the building might be half empty a lot of the time because only the car park 'owners' can park in their own parks. If they're not using the park, tough luck, noone else can either.

So either the building owner has to put up with 50+ cars constantly circulating, or they build another 50 car parks to allow the extra cars have somewhere to park.

KiwiSurfer

1725 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 994

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3266038 29-Jul-2024 20:45

Spaghetti:

CamH:

It's the cost and the limited number of static IPs available.

Taking CG-NAT out of the picture. If you have one dynamically assigned public IP, vs one statically assigned IP, the resource cost is the same.

So why are we charged more?

You've overlooked the very real support and engineering costs involved with providing a static IP service to what must be <0.01% (if not <0.001%) of the customer base of most RSPs.

Some good real life examples:-

Many years ago in the heydays of Woosh Wireless I asked for and was assigned a static IP for my WBB connection. Had trouble with traffic going out but nothing going back so got in touch with helpdesk who was a bit confused but eventually passed my query up the chain. It probably took their people some trouble shooting but it eventually turned out they had assigned the same IP to two different customers so they were routing traffic to whoever had the most recent PPP session (or something along those lines). The small number of static IP customers obviously meant they didn't bother automating the process and it was manual and error prone --> increased support and engineering costs.

And more recently a major RSP did a systems migration and accidently overlooked static ip customers who got put back into the dynamic IP pool by accident. What do we have here again? More support costs handling the static ip customers' support and more engineering work required to fix up the related systems and more testing work putting in the testing to ensure that sort of thing is picked up in the next round of migrations. It's also hilights the very small number of static ip customers that this wasn't picked up during testing/planning/etc.

And even without these issues, there's still the costs related to training support staff most of whom probably have never heard of it before their employment and may only handle a static ip query once in a blue moon. And the costs to keeping the infrastructure and code running, testing it when there are changes to network configuration, etc.

It's very easy for the cost of supporting static IP to reach levels where it doesn't make sense to offer it for free and the costs have to be passed on. And when it's only <0.01% of the customer base, then amortizing it across the very small customer base can lead to realisic per-user costs in the ranges of what is being charged by the RSPs. At the end of the day the cost is not non-zero, the cost can be substantinal. RSPs certaintly can't be expected to just do this for free.

The only RSP I can see being able to do static IP address well and at volume would be the likes of Quic and some of the more tech/biz-focused RSPs but even they still need to consider and pass on the costs associated with sitting on IPv4 blocks just to maintain their static IPv4 service. The mainstream RSPs are much more likely to not offer it altogether (due to the support hassle) or charge a good amount to ensure they cover all the direct (and indirect) costs associated with providing a static IP.

Spaghetti

23 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 5

#3266040 29-Jul-2024 21:02

CamH:

Dynamic is a lot easier to manage. If we just throw IPs in a pool and they get assigned at random, it's a lot easier than all the backend work to assign a static and ensure it doesn't mess with any future plans. For example, if I assign some static's in a block, and suddenly want to pull a /25 to assign somewhere else, if there's statics in the block, I can't do that. If everyone's dynamic, I can just go - cool, these are no longer in the dynamic block.

Can't you just put every available IP address in a DHCP pool but set reservations for the customers who want static?

Even if you have a static assigned /32 IPv4 in the middle of a /24, can't you add all the surrounding IP's to DHCP pools?

Spaghetti

23 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 5

#3266041 29-Jul-2024 21:05

BlackrazorNZ:

It's the difference between having 100 open use car parks and 100 assigned car parks, at the parking building.

Sure, the property owner still had to pay to provide 100 car parks. But with 100 open car parks, they can just let anyone take any car park, so they can fit 100 cars, all the time.

With 100 assigned car parks, each of which noone else is allowed to park in, the building might be half empty a lot of the time because only the car park 'owners' can park in their own parks. If they're not using the park, tough luck, noone else can either.

So either the building owner has to put up with 50+ cars constantly circulating, or they build another 50 car parks to allow the extra cars have somewhere to park.

To use this analogy, you can put a "no parking" sign up on allocated parks, and let the others drive get a dynamic car park. You still get 100 people able to park.

New World

Shop on-line at New World now for your groceries (affiliate link).

Spaghetti

23 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 5

#3266043 29-Jul-2024 21:06

KiwiSurfer:

You've overlooked the very real support and engineering costs involved with providing a static IP service to what must be <0.01% (if not <0.001%) of the customer base of most RSPs.

Setting a static reservation in a DHCP pool takes me less than a minute to do.

KiwiSurfer

1725 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 994

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3266044 29-Jul-2024 21:11

Spaghetti:

BlackrazorNZ:

It's the difference between having 100 open use car parks and 100 assigned car parks, at the parking building.

Sure, the property owner still had to pay to provide 100 car parks. But with 100 open car parks, they can just let anyone take any car park, so they can fit 100 cars, all the time.

With 100 assigned car parks, each of which noone else is allowed to park in, the building might be half empty a lot of the time because only the car park 'owners' can park in their own parks. If they're not using the park, tough luck, noone else can either.

So either the building owner has to put up with 50+ cars constantly circulating, or they build another 50 car parks to allow the extra cars have somewhere to park.

To use this analogy, you can put a "no parking" sign up on allocated parks, and let the others drive get a dynamic car park. You still get 100 people able to park.

And I guess you'd expect the allocated parks to be priced the same as dynamic parks? This is essentinally what you're arguing should be the case...

Spaghetti

23 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 5

#3266046 29-Jul-2024 21:14

KiwiSurfer:

And I guess you'd expect the allocated parks to be priced the same as dynamic parks? This is essentinally what you're arguing should be the case...

Yes, because it's just a DHCP reservation. Costs nothing.

KiwiSurfer

1725 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 994

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3266047 29-Jul-2024 21:14

Spaghetti:

KiwiSurfer:

You've overlooked the very real support and engineering costs involved with providing a static IP service to what must be <0.01% (if not <0.001%) of the customer base of most RSPs.

Setting a static reservation in a DHCP pool takes me less than a minute to do.

Righto, $RSP can just have the call centre guy ssh into their DHCP machine and add in a reservation for a random IP address for you. No problem.

1 | 2 | 3